The Romans: Religion
Who did the Romans worship?
For a long time the Romans believed in many different gods and goddesses. They thought they were all part of a family and people told stories or myths about them.
Each god or goddess looked after different people or things. These are a few of them:
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Saturn: one of the oldest gods, who was once the ruler, but his place was taken by his son (Jupiter). |
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Jupiter: god of the sky, he was the most important god. |
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Juno: Jupiter's wife, who looked after women. |
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Neptune: Jupiter's brother, who was the god of the sea. |
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Minerva: goddess of wisdom and women's work, such as weaving cloth. |
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Mars: god of war. |
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Venus: goddess of love, who was the lover of Mars. |
How many Roman gods were there?
There were a lot of gods as Romans discovered new ones all the time. This happened as they travelled from country to country learning about them from the people they conquered. It could make things quite complicated. For example, a soldier going on a journey would need to ask Mercury the god of travel for help, as well as Mithras the special soldiers' god and he might also need to make a sacrifice at the temple of Neptune if he had to travel by sea!
How did the Romans worship?
People worshipped the gods in temples where they made sacrifices of animals and precious things.
The Romans believed that your spirit went to the underworld when you died. To get there the dead needed to cross the river Styx. The dead person's family would give them a coin to pay the ferryman, Charon.
Romans also believed that the Emperors became gods, so everyone had to make a sacrifice to the Emperor. Christians often got into trouble because they refused to do this, and they had to worship in secret. Despite this secrecy, more people became Christian.
By the 4th century A.D. Christianity was so popular the Emperor Constantine decided to make it the official religion of the Roman Empire.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/romans/religion.shtml